Tuesday, October 31, 2006

Napoleon Bonaparte once said, "Men are moved by two levers only—fear and self interest." Today, I'll be (quite appropriately) talking about the first of those two levers: Fear.

Fear is our most primal emotion (possibly tied with lust). In a hostile environment, fear is what alerts a creature that it's in jeopardy and triggers its "fight or flight" reflex. Fear is the emotion responsible for keeping you alive. In the wild, when your life is frequently threatened, fear is your most valuable emotion.

But we don't live in the wild. Our world is a lot safer, and there's a lot less we need to fear. Of course, there still are cases where you should be afraid. If you're crossing the street and notice a car speeding towards you, apparently not having noticed the red light, you're right to be afraid, and the reflex to run will be quite useful (just don't try to fight the car). But these cases are a lot rarer than they would be in the wild.

This doesn't mean that people don't find much to fear, however; it just takes on a different form. Instead of a primal fear of danger, we have more abstract fears. The problem is that our fear reflexes didn't evolve to handle these more abstract fears, and it can often lead to people acting irrationally.

Take the case of someone who is afraid to be wrong about a certain subject. Them being wrong is akin to the death of their worldview. So, if their worldview is threatened by someone espousing a different view, fear may kick in. Their instincts tell them to do whatever they can to preserve their worldview, and their actions from this point on are guided by this. They look for arguments that will support their worldview in an attempt to defend it. Their goal doesn't become determining whether it's right, it becomes proving it is right.

An outside observer should immediately see the problem here: What if the person actually was wrong in the first place? How would they ever learn this, if this is the approach they're taking? The answer is that they probably won't. They'll see only evidence that supports their worldview, and they'll either deny or twist any evidence that contradicts it.

But even when you realize that, you most likely still don't want to be wrong. That's perfectly fine, as I have an alternative approach for you. If you're afraid of being wrong, focus you efforts on finding out what's right, and then advocate that. Once you've done that, congratulations! You've now accepted the key tenet of the Scientific Method.

Of course, there's another big area in life where fear plays a role: Religion. Almost every religion has as one of its key tenets the belief that those who don't believe are faced with certain doom. Nothing illustrates this better than the Christian belief that those who don't accept Jesus Christ as their savior are doomed to eternal torture.

If you view this as some sort of actual justice system, it doesn't make much sense. Why would a loving god give out infinite punishments for a finite sin? On the other hand, if you look at this as an invention of humans in order to scare people into believing, it makes perfect sense. What better way to make people believe than by telling them that they're in for eternal torture if they don't? And while they're at it, they pull the second lever as well. They promise those who do believe an eternity of bliss, effectively doubling the stakes. People are simultaneously scared of the consequences of not believing and enticed to believe.

Of course, the problem with this is that it's all an argument from consequences. The consequences of something being true or believing something to be true have no bearing on whether or not it actually is true. The human mind is normally set up against this; it naturally believes what it sees evidence for, not what it wishes were true. Sure, it would be nice if you could walk through walls, but there's no evidence for it. So your brain believes that you can't, even though it being true would have good consequences.

So, why then do people end up actually believing in religion, rather than simply paying lip-service to it? Well, part of it is indoctrination from birth. Another part is people lying and using logical fallacies to convince them. But this doesn't cover all of it; there are still people out there who believe that the evidence out there actually supports religion.

What happens here is just the same as in my previous example, only these people are coming at it from a different direction. People want to believe in religion because they're afraid of the consequences of not believing. But if the evidence they've seen causes a contradiction in their minds, they have to find some way to resolve it. What often happens is that they start to look for evidence to justify their beliefs. Their goal is no longer to determine whether they're true, but to find reasons that they are true. Once they've done this, they've successfully fooled themselves into believing.

The solution here is even easier than in the previous case. Here, all it takes is to be aware of what's going on. If someone tries to seduce you with a belief by appealing to the consequences of it, point out that the hypothetical consequences have no bearing on whether or not it's true. All that should determine whether or not you believe in something is whether or not it's true. Keep this in mind, and you'll never end up trying insanely to prove something insane just because you wish it were true.

<crocodile hunter>Ah! It appears we've stumbled upon a Creationist. This is a quite interest organism, so let's take a moment to study it, shall we?

.... Like evolutionist's fanacy that you came from a monkey.

Crikey! One sentence in and we already not one, but two characteristic traits of the Creationist. First, notice how he's added the "ist" suffix onto "evolution," something never done by proponents themselves. Doing this is indicative of his attempts to build up a straw man; he doesn't even label his opponents correctly!

Speaking of a straw man, we come to the other problem with his sentence: Claiming that "evolutionists" claim we come from monkeys. If he bothered to look into it at all, he'd surely find out that "evolutionists" claim nothing of the sort. What they actually claim is that humans and monkeys share a common ancestor. We're their cousins, not their children! In fact, it's worth noting that humans are much more closely related to Bonobos and Chimpanzees than to monkeys.

Don't believe it unless they can show you a part monkey and part man.

Ah, now he's asking for that old "Missing Link" Creationists are always complaining about. This is one of the very curious properties of Creationists, here: they have very selective blindness. Specifically, they're blind to all the fossils we've found that actually do show a continuum of evolution.

The fanciful land of the Evolutionist: Scarce fossil record but damn it I believe it!

Ooh, what a startling turnabout! He's gone from saying we should expect to see a ton of missing links to saying the record is too scarce! Creationists are renowned for their ability to harness contradictory thoughts within their minds at the same time; it's truly remarkable.

You can also see that selective blindness coming in again here. He's completely blind to the fossils we actually have seen, and goes to claim it's too scarce. The reality is that of course there are going to be gaps in the fossil record; that would happen however extensive it was. But despite that, we still have a remarkable number of fossils showing just the evolution of humans from lesser primates; not to mention the evolution of everything else on Earth!

Also, this is about a perfect example as you're going to get of what those Americans call "The pot calling the kettle black." He's here acting like "evolutionists" are acting in faith, when that's the very thing his belief system is doing!</crocodile hunter>

Ah, Steve Irwin... He'll never truly be dead as long as we can keep parodying him.

Crikey! One sentence in and we already not one, but two characteristic traits of the Creationist. First, notice how he's added the "ist" suffix onto "evolution," something never done by proponents themselves."

Claiming that "evolutionists" claim we come from monkeys. If he bothered to look into it at all, he'd surely find out that "evolutionists" claim nothing of the sort. What they actually claim is that humans and monkeys share a common ancestor. We're their cousins, not their children! In fact, it's worth noting that humans are much more closely related to Bonobos and Chimpanzees than to monkeys.

Also, this is about a perfect example as you're going to get of what those Americans call "The pot calling the kettle black." He's here acting like "evolutionists" are acting in faith, when that's the very thing his belief system is doing!

Some people like I am able to believe it, but some people like you live in denial.

The universe isn't a simple place. The base rules may be simple, but like a lot of games, simple rules can lead to complex behavior.

Actually that's a claim that you guys make not us. But it serves to prove how your own words condemn you.

Someone's going subjective definition. Unfortunately, a perfect fossil record would require repealing the first law of thermodynamics.

Yes. And they just happen to be one monkey coming from another monkey. What a revelation!

Thanks but no thanks.

More creative definitions.

Some people like I am able to believe it, but some people like you live in denial.

If you'd like to prove that the universe doesn't follow rules (the closest thing we have to faith: a tenative assumption that the laws of physics are consistent), there's a guy in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida who'll give you a million dollars if you can prove it.

What more can you expect from someone who thinks he came from a monkey.

<crocodile hunter>Ah, I see we've come upon another interesting creature: The flooder. Notice how he uses a grand total of seven posts to reply to just one. It's not malicious, he simply doesn't realize that once he reaches the end of the text box on the commenting page, it starts to scroll down for him.

I've actually had experience with this particular flooder before, and you can trust me here: Every point he's raised here has already been addressed. He apparently suffers selective deafness, too, so that he never hears any argument against him.<crocodile hunter>

If you'd like to prove that the universe doesn't follow rules (the closest thing we have to faith: a tenative assumption that the laws of physics are consistent), there's a guy in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida who'll give you a million dollars if you can prove it.

Nice post, Infophile. Every time you post a part-one-of-two I look forward to the part two. How will you describe psuedoscience and magical thinking in terms of self interest?

All I have to say is, "Wait and see." I actually did this post a bit sooner than I'd planned to so it fell on Halloween, so it may be a bit before I get back to the second part (I'm still planning to do part 2 of Distilled Wisdom 3 first).

If you want a hint, though, I already touched a bit here on how some religions use it. This is easily extended to many cults, most of which of their own quackery of one form or another. But that's just part of the story.

Just goes to show that Weapon has zero reading comprehension. Since he's got a fetish for educational level, maybe he should try passing 7th grade biology and learn what evolution is before parroting all the Cretinist lies about it.

Oh, and James Randi is, of course, vehemently opposed to Intelligent Design. It's as incoherent as all the psychic/newage/PPM stuff he has to deal with all day.